Friday, September 30, 2011

On its present now red-zoned riverside site since 1919. Demolition was scheduled to begin yesterday on the school's condemned earthquake-damaged blocks. All fenced off today, though not much activity yet. Pupils are currently attending Burnside High, and the school is set to temporarily reopen with prefab classrooms next year. After 2013 its future is uncertain.

A refreshingly candid article by English rugby writer Peter Bills in South Africa's Cape Argus captures something of the recent mood in post-quake Canterbury:

'The Canterbury earthquake has forced its people to look inwards at themselves, their lives and their shattered city.

"Christchurch is studying itself and it does not like what it is seeing" said one local.

Bitter in-fighting has replaced the initial shock and grief. Cantabrian has turned on Cantabrian.'

While there's plenty of rancor born of frustration in evidence in the comment sections of local online media, the editorial tone has until recently attempted to manage rather than analyse the public mood. Faced with an aloof and authoritarian Earthquake Recovery Authority, and a largely sidelined City Council headed by a vapid former game show host, people have grown weary of simply being praised for their stoicism. Right now the mood seems to be shifting from blaming one another to demanding constructive answers.

The public support for Wellington property magnate Bob Jones's recent criticism of the City Council's nebulous scheme for a central city rebuild as an unsustainable fantasy has shaken the complacency of local government. Hopefully this will lead to a more genuine form of public consultation than the Council's recent stage-managed "Have Your Say" distraction.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

It seems there's been a prediction circulating on the religious fringe that Wednesday 28 September was to be Christchurch's turn for a massive tsunami. As it happened, lots of spring sunshine, with quake-related demolition continuing at the pace we've grown used to.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

For those unfamiliar with the situation here in Christchurch, a little background:

In the wake of the series of earthquakes that have devastated much of Christchurch and its environs, the Government has established an authority to manage the area's recovery. CERA, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, has divided the district into color-coded zones, according to the degree of damage they've suffered. Properties in the red zones are deemed to be beyond repair. They'll be acquired by the Government for eventual 'remediation', and their owners compensated. While some have welcomed this as an end to their troubles, others are discovering that they've barely begun.

CERA is an organisation with potentially draconian powers, such as being able to acquire land without being subject to the usual processes of consent. Unfortunately it's so far been less than proactive in assisting those worst affected by the biggest natural disaster in New Zealand's history.

Despite being a Government agency, CERA shows little interest in ensuring that people are able to reestablish their disrupted lives in the face of land shortages and rising prices. While the Government insists that such things should be left to the market, it consults with insurers before releasing policy. 'Geotech' information - seismic engineers' reports on the status of affected land - is currently withheld from affected landowners, while the responsible Government Minister has publicly toyed with the possibility of making it available to their insurance companies.

When somewhere over two hundred aggrieved red zone residents and their supporters gathered in Kaiapoi last Sunday they were part of a groundswell of protest taking place across the region. There was a similar event in Avonside two weeks earlier, with another scheduled for Sunday September 9 in Bexley. Their reasons are as diverse as their situations - some dispute that their properties are beyond repair, others find that the total replacement that they'd insured for in good faith has vanished into a convenient loophole expedited by Government collusion with their insurers.

Red zoners must deal with a deliberately distant and disinterested Government agency, along with a City Council lacking the political will to take any meaningful initiative. Earthquake recovery Minister Brownlee has implied that the disaffected are greedy and naive. Rather than attend to the needs of those he's been appointed to serve he plays to what he seems to hope is the rest of the country's compassion fatigue. As Kaiapoi rally organiser Brent Cairns told last Sunday's crowd: "We are doing this for maybe the whole of New Zealand. Our concern is, earthquakes could happen in Wellington, they could happen in Auckland, and if this Government is going to treat us so badly, here in Kaiapoi, in Christchurch, in Canterbury, they're going to continue and do it again if someone has a natural disaster like we've had, so essentially that's why we need to stand for our rights."

There were some excellent speakers at Kaiapoi's meeting. First, a brief interview with Avonside red zoner Mike Coleman.

An excerpt from Mike Coleman's speech, in which he illuminates some of the darker recesses of the zoning jungle, and reveals why some are rated red while others will be forever spared.

Finally, the speech that truly resonated with the crowd. The distinguished Kaiapoi maritime artist Craig Smith, with five minutes straight from the heart.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Despite representing the worst-hit areas of the city, for some time now Christchurch's Labour MPs have been thwarted in effectively representing the concerns of their constituents by the easy accusation of "playing politics". Even within their own party there's been a sense that their hard-won first-hand experience has been somehow ring-fenced, so it's encouraging to see something approaching real policy at last.

Christchurch's own journal of record has provided little long-term recovery-related information in the past week, apart from garbled and contradictory spin on Earthquake Recovery Minister Brownlee's fruitless trip to plead the region's case with overseas insurers. It's disappointing, though hardly unexpected, that they'd run an ill-informed piece attacking a proposal that offers some alternative to the current malaise of demolish and hope.

The always excellent Avonside Blog has an illuminating post that provides rather more background information on earthquake recovery issues than most mainstream media have so far shown the will to provide:

The Roger Sutton who won the affection of quake-hit Christchurch back in February when he oversaw the restoration of power to damaged suburbs is seldom seen of late. Sadly the earthquake recovery CEO is no longer the unassuming guy who'd cycle to community events. Unless they're part of the tightly managed script he's nowhere to be seen, as was the case on September 11 when Avonside residents turned out to protest CERA's failure to address their concerns.

They'd be delighted to see you at Kaiapoi this Sunday Roger, just as they'd love to have access to the data that your organisation currently privileges to their insurance companies. It's not too late, not yet.